The Marshall Plan: Rebuilding a Devastated Europe
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L A W E N E THE MARSHALL PLAN: R R A W - T REBUILDING A S O DEVASTATED EUROPE P HOW GEORGE C. MARSHALL GUIDED EFFORTS TO REBUILD POST WORLD WAR II EUROPE By Gerald Zarr This is Hamburg in 1945. There were an estimated 500 million cubic tons of rubble in German cities. There were so many unburied corpses in the rubble that whole districts of German cities were walled in to prevent the spread of disease. leading to pitched battles between miners and police. Several hundred Navy electricians narrowly saved the capital’s electric plants from Communist sabotage. In Germany, food rations were reduced to 1,040 calories a day, and men and women fainted at their desks. Without coal, homes went unheated in winter and hundreds died. Troubled by stories of starva - hen the Second World War ended in August 1945, tion in occupied Germany, Europe was devastated. Once-fertile fields were scarred President Truman sent former by bomb craters and tank tracks. Sixty million people president Herbert Hoover on a died. Warsaw, Berlin, Hamburg, Le Havre and Rotter - fact-finding mission to Germany dam lay in ruins. An estimated 500 million cubic tons in early 1946. Hoover was the oWf rubble littered German cities alone. With factories and businesses ideal choice for this job. Born in destroyed, there was no work. Iowa — and still the only presi - dent from that state — he became a mining engineer, and worked “What is Europe now? It is a rubble-heap, a charnel house, in the Australian gold mines. At the outbreak of the First World a breeding ground of pestilence and hate.” War, he found himself in London Winston Churchill, May 14, 1947 and, almost by accident, got into Belgian war relief. For 2 years, he worked 14 hour days, distributing In Britain, this period is known as the Age of Austerity — a time of 2½ million tons of food to 9 mil - drab clothes, long faces, and endless queues. Everyone had a ration lion war victims. In an early form book for food, petrol and clothes. Food rations fell below the wartime of shuttle diplomacy, he crossed average. France had the added burden of Communist-inspired strikes, the North Sea 40 times to meet October/November 2012 History Magazine 37 L duty. After the war, he didn’t seek A W further office, but was not one to E turn down his commander-in- N E chief. In January 1947, he became R secretary of state. In his famous R A speech at Harvard University on 5 W June 1947, he spoke of Europe’s - T S dysfunctional economy: Europe O was caught in a vicious circle. It P had to rebuild its shattered indus - try and get people back to work, but governments had to use their scarce foreign exchange to import food just to keep people alive. The market economy had broken down. With nothing to buy in stores, farmers had no incentive to sell their produce for money. Farmers let their land lie fallow and food production plummeted. Marshall said that the U.S. should A German mother cooks for her family on a street corner in Berlin in August 1945. do what it can “to assist in the return of normal economic health to the world, without which there with German authorities and per - THE MARSHALL PLAN can be no political stability and suade them to allow food ship - UNVEILED no assured peace.” And then to ments, becoming an international George Catlett Marshall was reassure the Soviet Union: “Our hero. In 1946, Hoover crisscrossed America’s foremost soldier during policy is not directed against Germany in Field Marshal Her - World War II, serving as U.S. any country, but against hunger, mann Goering’s old rail coach. His Army chief of staff from 1939 to poverty, and chaos.” report to Truman was sharply 1945. He was a self-effacing man Perched up in his bed in critical of U.S. occupation policy: with a highly developed sense of London, British Foreign Secretary “There’s an illusion that Germany can be reduced to a pastoral state. It can’t be done, unless 25 million people are killed or moved out of Germany.” This was a thinly veiled swipe at the Morgenthau Plan, devised by Henry Morgenthau, Roosevelt’s Treasury Secretary, which sought to turn Germany into a pastoral state, without heavy industry. After Hoover’s report, the Morgenthau Plan was replaced by a new strategy which supported “the complete revival of German industry — because a prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany.” To combat malnutrition, a school meals program was started, feeding 3.5 In Britain, the postwar years are known as the Age of Austerity. Everyone had a million children, known as the ration book for food, petrol and clothes — and food rations fell below the wartime Hooverspeisung (Hoover meals). average. It was a time of drab clothes, long faces, and endless queues. 38 History Magazine October/November 2012 Ernest Bevin listened to a broad - cast of the speech on the BBC. He immediately grasped its signifi - cance: “It was like a lifeline to sinking men. It seemed to bring hope when there was none. The generosity of it was beyond belief.” Yes, there was altruism in the American offer, but a large dose of self interest too. The American economy had emerged relatively unscathed from World War II and could produce the au - tomobiles, machinery, and other goods that Europe craved, but couldn’t afford. Bevin goaded Europe into action. In July 1947, sixteen West - ern European countries met at the grand dining room of the French Foreign Ministry to agree George Catlett Marshall became on a response to the American secretary of state in Jan. 1947 offer. This was a tall order because — the first career soldier to hold that many competing interests had to office. Here he is in the procession at Harvard University, just before his be reconciled. France insisted that famous speech on 5 June 1947. Germany not be rebuilt to its previous threatening power. The British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin Benelux countries were closely was the first to see the significance of Marshall’s speech: “George C. Marshall linked to the German economy threw us a lifeline and we grabbed it and felt their prosperity depended with both hands.” With Bevin’s prodding, on its revival. Scandinavia wanted Europe moved quickly. Only one month after Marshall’s speech, 16 Western to protect its trading relationships European countries met at the grand with the Eastern Bloc and safe - dining room of the French Foreign guard its neutrality. Great Britain Ministry to agree on a response to the insisted on special status. The American offer. Americans made it clear that any plan for European recovery had meeting. Molotov went to Paris, At 29, he became secretary of the to come from the Europeans but left in a huff saying the Bristol branch of the Dockers’s themselves. America would only Marshall Plan violated the U.N. Union. He spoke with a strong help those who energetically and charter and the United States was West Country accent. Forever cooperatively helped themselves. a “center of anti-Soviet activity”. reading and studying, in Baptist Marshall made his offer to all The powerful French and Italian chapel and trade union study Europe, not just Western Europe, communist parties were ordered groups, he sought books and de - so for a time, Stalin considered to block the Marshall Plan in bate wherever they were available. applying for Marshall Plan aid. their countries. He developed his oratorical skills But this would require the Soviets as a Baptist lay preacher. He was a to open up their economic books, THE KEY EUROPEANS physically huge, strong and, by the a clear no-no for them. When British Foreign Secretary Ernest time of his political prominence, Czechoslovakia made plans to Bevin was born in a remote very heavy man. It was said of attend the Paris meeting, Stalin Somerset village, orphaned at Bevin — as a compliment to the summoned Foreign Minister Jan eight, and left school at 11. He respect which he had earned — Masaryk to Moscow for a tongue- worked as a bakeshop boy at six - that it was hard to imagine him lashing, which led all Eastern pence a week, a van boy, a horse filling any other job in the Foreign European leaders to boycott the tram conductor, and a teamster. Office except that of an old and October/November 2012 History Magazine 39 L truculent lift attendant. Bevin was Soviet Foreign Minister will quiver a few times and then A W a strong supporter of the United Vyacheslav Molotov accompa - die.” It was named the Marshall E States and the Marshall Plan. nied Stalin to all the wartime Plan. The plan met sharp opposi - N E France’s Foreign Minister conferences, where he was known tion from the isolationist wing of R Robert Schuman was as different as a tough negotiator and deter - the Republican Party and from R A from Ernest Bevin in appearance, mined defender of Soviet inter - Leftists, who saw the plan as a W temperament, mind and manner ests. In his wartime memoirs, subsidy for American exporters - T S as any man could be. He was lean, Churchill lists many meetings and an irritant for the Soviet O slightly stooped, with a long, seri - with Molotov, whom he called a Union. Opposition waned after P ous face, and a habit of sinking his “man of outstanding ability and the Communist coup in Czecho - chin in his collar as he peered over cold-blooded ruthlessness..